


She Has All the Books

by completelyhopeless



Category: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Community: comment_fic, Gen, Pre-Canon, slightly cracky
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-11-30
Updated: 2014-11-30
Packaged: 2018-02-27 11:57:50
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 449
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2692103
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/completelyhopeless/pseuds/completelyhopeless
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Somehow Melinda May has all the books Phil Coulson needs for his studies. Somehow this starts their friendship.</p>
            </blockquote>





	She Has All the Books

**Author's Note:**

  * For [hanorganaas](https://archiveofourown.org/users/hanorganaas/gifts).



> For the prompt: _[Agents of SHIELD, Phil/Melinda, Academy!Phil and Melinda bond over their studies....and comic books.](http://comment-fic.livejournal.com/560173.html?thread=78949933#t78949933)_
> 
> I had all this fluff in mind, and then May made a joke, and in came the crack. It's just a minor thing, and May might have been light-hearted enough to make a joke of it in the academy. Maybe.

* * *

It wasn't the first time Phil had needed the same book that Melinda May already had. In fact, it was about the nineteenth time it had happened. Only eighteenth if he didn't count the one he'd found her reading in the library—she hadn't checked that one out yet. He didn't understand it. He checked the syllabus before he entered the classes, and he'd gotten hold of all the books and manuals that could be gotten before the start of the class, and he'd even reserved some of the books for next semester in advance, so her getting to all of them before him didn't make any sense.

He found her in the library, as usual. “May.”

“Coulson.”

“You have a book I need. Again.” He pointed to the one in her hands. “That one, in fact. Somehow every time I go to find a book I need, you have it.”

“I have boobs,” she said bluntly. “For some reason that means people give me things even if I don't ask for them.”

Phil nodded, though he was trying desperately to figure out how he could pretend he hadn't heard that so he didn't spend the rest of his life looking at her chest. He hadn't paid a lot of attention to it before, just in passing, but now he didn't know how not to notice.

“I'm going down to Digital Dungeon,” he blurted out, and she raised an eyebrow. “Um... for comics. They do have a lot of specialized games there, but no matter what Eastman says, I don't DM for anyone.”

She waited. He hoped he wasn't red now.

“I have a few special orders coming in,” he went on like none of this bothered him. “I figure I should go down and pick them up so that you don't use your special powers to get them before I do.”

“Are you after _Action Comics_ number one?”

Phil shook his head. “Wrong publisher. I collect Captain America comics.”

She smiled. “That suits you somehow, Coulson.”

“You think so? Most people think it's kind of... weird.”

 _“You_ are kind of weird,” she told him, still smiling as she rose and gathered her books into her arms. “Where is this store? I've never been there before, and I don't think I've ever driven past it, either.”

“You want to go there?” Phil asked, frowning. She had to be teasing him. He didn't see any other explanation for it. “Why?”

She nudged him with her elbow. She was stronger than she looked. “How can I steal your comics if I don't know where you're getting them?”

“I _might_ let you borrow them.”

“And I _might_ let you borrow the book.”

**Author's Note:**

> Digital Dungeon is a real store where I live. It mostly specializes in games. It's where we used to pick up packs for the Lord of the Rings trading card game, where we got some of our Star Wars figures (I almost bought some Marvel but was broke at the time and they didn't have the ones I wanted in store) and where we got the book for the Star Wars role-playing game we tried to play.
> 
> I was a lousy Dungeon Master, though. I created a box that I didn't want to tell anyone what was in it so they all died when they voted to open it because that was the roll.


End file.
